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The View from My Kitchen

Benvenuti! I hope you enjoy il panorama dalla mia cucina Italiana -- "the view from my Italian kitchen,"-- where I indulge my passion for Italian food and cooking. From here, I share some thoughts and ideas on food, as well as recipes and restaurant reviews, notes on travel, and a few garnishes from a lifetime in the entertainment industry.

You can help by leaving comments on posts and by becoming a follower. More than a hundred thousand people all over the world have viewed the blog and that's great. But every great leader needs followers and if I am ever to achieve my goal of becoming the next great leader of the Italian culinary world :-) I need followers! I promise, I'm not going to spam anybody. I'd just like to know who's out there and what your thoughts are on what I'm doing.

Grazie mille!

Friday, December 26, 2014

Will You Say Twenty-Fifteen or Two-Thousand Fifteen?

Facing a New Year of Blatant
Mispronunciation

Another shiny new twenty-first century
year is upon us, and with it comes another opportunity to address one
of my favorite peeves: the proper way to pronounce a twenty-first
century year.

2015. It's “twenty-fifteen.”
Period.

I know, I know.......you're going to
hear “two-thousand fifteen” everywhere as the unenlightened among
us continue to abuse the form. You may even be forced to listen to
the nails-on-a-blackboard intonations of those who insist on
“two-thousand AND fifteen.” But take my word for it, folks; it's
twenty-fifteen.

According to a poll conducted by CNN at
the beginning of 2014 (that's “twenty-fourteen”), forty-six
percent of Americans planned to correctly say “twenty-fourteen”
while an obstinate fifty-two percent intended to keep blabbering
“two-thousand fourteen.” (I imagine the remaining two percent
were the “two-thousand AND fourteen” crowd.) This is a good thing
in terms of the survival of humanity because it represents a
significant increase in right-thinking people over the previous
decade. But, unfortunately, it is still a long uphill battle.

It all started at the turn of the
current century. Up until the opening year of the twenty-first
interval, things had been fairly simple and straightforward: you had
seventeen-hundred, eighteen-hundred, nineteen-hundred, etc. But when
the year 2000 came along, nobody – yours truly included – was
going to say “twenty-hundred.” So “two-thousand” became the
official term for the 365-day interim. Logically, everything should have
defaulted to the historically set pattern the following year and we
should have started the progression with “twenty-oh-one,”
“twenty-oh-two,” twenty-oh-three,” and so on. But we didn't.
And I think Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick are partly to blame.

Popular usage and popular culture are
powerful influences on society. For some reason, the '60s pop
cultural icon that was “2001: A Space Odyssey” got rendered right
from the beginning as “two-thousand one.” Nobody ever called it
“Twenty-oh-one: A Space Odyssey.” And when the actual calendar
year of 2001 rolled around, the popular reference just kind of stuck.
I think I was the only broadcaster on the planet who insisted it was
“twenty-oh-one” that year. The popular odds were definitely
against me. I thought, “Well, it'll pass next year and people will
come back around to the proper sequence.” I couldn't have been more
wrong.

Thing is, there's no precedent for it.
No logical reason. No historical pattern. Think about it: when we
moved forward from 1900 (nineteen-hundred, as opposed to one-thousand
nine-hundred), did we go to one-thousand nine-hundred and one? Of
course not. The year was commonly expressed as “nineteen-oh-one.”
Was Lincoln assassinated in one-thousand eight-hundred sixty-five?
Did the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor in one-thousand nine-hundred
forty-one? Did we land on the moon in one-thousand nine-hundred and
sixty-nine? Ridiculous, right? Columbus “sailed the ocean blue”
in “fourteen-hundred and ninety-two,” not in “one-thousand
four-hundred and ninety-two.” Heck, go back to the dawn of the last
millennium. Did the Norman Conquest happen in one-thousand sixty-six?
Nope. It was ten sixty-six. Nobody ever says otherwise. So why, on
the upcoming one-thousandth anniversary of the event, will some
people likely still be saying “two-thousand sixty-six?” I don't
know. It's beyond me. It is unsound, absurd, preposterous thinking at
best. To quote Mr. Spock, “ Quite illogical.”

We're moving in the right direction.
I've noticed lately that announcers, newscasters, etc. are leaning
more toward “twenty” whatever and are using “two-thousand”
less frequently. It's still about a fifty-fifty proposition, but
overall it's a lot better than it was ten years ago.

Of course, ten years ago we were all
struggling with what to call the decade itself. That problem is a
constant no matter what the century. Once you get into the “teens,”
it becomes simple. From there you go to the “twenties,”
“thirties,” “forties,” '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, and '90s. But
those first ten years are always a bugaboo. You can't call them the
“ohs” and you can't call them the “aughts” without sounding
like your great-grandfather. “I remember back in aught-one......”
Thank you, no. But until the current millennium, we never had trouble
with what to call the individual year. My parents were born in
nineteen-fifteen and nineteen-eighteen, respectively. My sisters were
born in nineteen-forty-one and nineteen-forty-six. And anyone who
tried to say that I was born in one-thousand nine-hundred and
fifty-five would have been branded a loony tune.

There is one small glimmer of hope on
the horizon and it will occur in five years. In 2020. In the same way
that the year 2001 had the force of popular usage behind it, so, too,
does the number 2020. There's a popular TV news program called 20/20
(pronounced “twenty-twenty). And perfect vision is commonly cited
as 20/20. It is, therefore, my belief and fervent hope that that year
will be popularly expressed in the same manner rather than as
“two-thousand twenty.” I think perhaps something with a strong
common association will break the cycle begun at the turn of the
century and we'll all get back on track in twenty twenty-one, twenty
twenty-two, twenty twenty-three and on into the future.

Walter Cronkite had a signature
sign-off; “And that's the way it is........” and he would then
note the date. When he signed off for the last time, he said, “And
that's the way it is, Friday, March sixth, nineteen eighty-one.”
Had that leave-taking occurred thirty-four years later, I would like
to think he would not have said “two thousand fifteen.” He would,
in the manner of a thoughtful, logical professional, have instead
expressed the date as “March sixth, twenty-fifteen.” That's the
way it is and that's the way it should be.

My anonymous friend, I took your little test and aced it. I'm not sure what post you read, but I never said a thing about switching. With the admitted exception of the year two thousand (saying "twenty-hundred" would have been awkward and rather weird), I did,indeed say "twenty-oh-one," "twenty-oh-two," and so on AT THE TIME. (Your caps) And I do,indeed, continue to say "twenty-oh" whatever to this very day, whether I am referring to the current year or to a past year, making me extremely consistent......as well as excruciatingly correct. :-) And don't go by Marty McFly. I mean, where are those cool shoes we're supposed to have by now? :-)

Ah, Jeremy. I've never advocated "twenty-hundred" as any sort of alternative. But "short" is the operative word here. How many syllables in "two-thousand-fifteen?" Five. How many in "twenty fifteen?" Four. So which is the more economical term?

SO SAD how your haters (The stubborn "Two-Thousand and Fifteen" people, refuse to acknowledge your well worded argument of the previous centuries and hence the CORRECT pronunciation ie: Nineteen-Seventy-Five and not the ridiculous one thousand nine-hundred and seventy-five. MY solution? When I post anything about the year I simply type it as 20-15...maybe the haters can actually understand that! I appreciate your intelligence on this topic as I too have felt all alone in this "Oh, who cares" world we've been seeing the past twenty years or so...Happy 20-16 soon!

I actually saw a Rooms to Go commercial on television recently where the idiot announcer says "No interest until two thousand twenty". UGH. WHY?! It was like nails on a chalkboard! They just refuse to let "two thousand" go!Will people still be saying it like that in "two thousand ninety nine"? Thank God I won't be here to see that!

We don't say 19-75 because we really meant to say 19 (hundred and) 75 but wanted to save space. We say 19-75 because it's faster to group a 4 digit number into two two digit numbers. Your explanation is a "retcon" to justify saying two thousand.

Proof: The battle of Hastings is in 10-66 and we certainly don't say it was in 10 hundred and 66.

I predict at a certain point, probably when people that came of age after 2020 are the majority, even the year "2001" "2008" etc will be pronounced 20-01 and 20-08 etc.

Who Am I (and Why Should You Care)?

I've been around long enough to know a little bit about a lot of things. That said, there are a couple of things I know a little bit more about; food and entertainment.

I've been cooking since I was a kid -- a very long time, indeed -- and I've spent most of my adult life in the entertainment industry.

I've been writing about one or the other of these topics since the '80s, and I have been published in numerous magazines and newspapers over the years. I also spent the better part of two decades behind a microphone as the host of my own radio talk show.

Does all of this make me an expert? Nah! But I'm certainly entitled to my opinion -- and so are you! :-)